This invention relates to an apparatus for arranging timber packages, more precisely to an apparatus for assembling layers of timber pieces to a package with or without sticks between the layers, comprising a device for transferring a layer of a predetermined number of timber pieces advanced one at a time by a feed conveyor to a liftable and lowerable stacking table disposed in the feed direction of said conveyor after the conveyor, on which table the layers are positioned by the transfer device and stacked one above the other to form a timber package, and which with the growth of the timber package correspondingly moves in steps until the package is completed.
Package arranger of the aforesaid kind are previously known and comprise, in addition to a transfer device, a special layer assembler conveyor in direct connection to the delivery end of the feed conveyor, from which layer assembler conveyor the transfer conveyor fetches a completed layer and transfers the same to the liftable and lowerable stacking table at the same time as the next layer to be transferred is assembled on the layer assembler conveyor. At these known package arrangers both a layer assembler conveyor and a transfer device are required for being able to transfer a layer and at the same time to assemble the next layer. The present invention, therefore, has the object of rendering a special layer assembler conveyor unnecessary and to produce a package arranger, the transfer device of which serves also as a layer assembler and renders it possible to assemble a layer while a layer already assembled is being transferred to the stacking table, and where the distance for transferring assembled layers to the stacking table is relatively short.
This object is achieved in that the apparatus according to the present invention has been given the characterizing features defined in the claims .